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        New Message Board Archives >> Medications, Treatments, Therapies 2004 >> Acupuncture
        
(Message started by: larry_b on Mar 13^th, 2004, 12:14pm)

Title: Acupuncture
Post by larry_b on Mar 13^th, 2004, 12:14pm

I know a person in Arizona who claims that she had acupuncture for severe headaches and she said that she hasn't had a severe headache in 20 years. I'm tempted to try it. Does anyone out there have any input? [smiley=huh.gif] [smiley=huh.gif] [smiley=huh.gif]

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by UN_SOLVED on Mar 13^th, 2004, 1:15pm

Been there and done that at MHNI. Didn't help with the clusters at all.

Unsolved

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by 1MajorPain on Mar 13^th, 2004, 2:02pm

Same here...been there done that, but I will add that it's probably a better thing to try than all the liver killing drugs people are trying.

Major

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by pubgirl on Mar 13^th, 2004, 4:02pm

Which drugs are those Major?

Wendy

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by 1MajorPain on Mar 13^th, 2004, 5:58pm

Just seems to me that doctors will try anything in an effort to make the patient think he knows what he's doing, when most, truthfully will tell you they have no idea.
My list of drugs given over the years have been, sumatriptans (all kinds), cafergot,ergotamine, prednisone, dexmethasone, sansert, inderal. I'm sure I've forgotten some as it's been many years.

Major

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by Scooter on Mar 13^th, 2004, 6:50pm

I have tried Acupuncture before with no luck, Iam trying it again along with some herb teas. I have had three treatments and have had a HA all three nights, but Iam going to stick with it. If it works I will post the results.

Scooter

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by toader on Mar 15^th, 2004, 12:00pm

I've tried acupuncture quite a bit and had mixed success.

We did it alot when I was in my worst cluster bouts - having 8+ attacks a day. The Imitrix was all used up and the O2 was my only abortive. We did our own needles and it worked sometimes in helping take down my Apocalypse Now attacks to a tolerable Nick Nolte level.

A nice acupuncturist will show you the pressure points in the hand to use and sell you some needles so you can do it yourself.

Now, my favorite needle has 6mg of imitrix waiting at the other end :D

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by sandie99 on Mar 16^th, 2004, 4:21am

I must say that I give you guys credit for trying acupuncture. I can't stand the idea of needles! No way... I've heard that it helps for some headaches, but don't about CH. This beast is very stubborn one.

Best wishes & PFdays,
sandie99

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by Rock_Lobster on Mar 16^th, 2004, 7:07am

I have heard that unlike drugs this procedure is much more reliant upon the skill of the practitioner. Sounds logical. Truth to that?

Rock

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by toader on Mar 16^th, 2004, 9:47am

hon, you can't even feel the needles!

Title: New Research on Acupuncture
Post by floridian on Mar 16^th, 2004, 9:56am

This research is on chronic migraine and tension headache, not cluster headache. I am not suggesting that acupuncture helps with clusters, although I am hopeful that someday a specific acupuncture treatment might be developed that is beneficial to us. But at present, there is no evidence that this would reduce our pain.

From the Sloan-Ketterling Center - acupuncture (up to 12 treatments over a 3 month period) didn't seem to have an effect in the short run. When doing a one year follow-up, significant improvement was seen for the acupuncture group.

Quote:

Patients receiving acupuncture had 22 fewer days of headaches per year, used 15 percent less medication, made 25 percent fewer visits to their family doctors and took fewer days off sick than the other group.

There were not many side effects and Vickers and his colleagues also found that the treatment was cost effective.

"For severely affected patients, acupuncture reduced the severity and the frequency of their headaches to make a real difference in their lives," Vickers said.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/conditions/03/15/acupuncture.headaches.reut/index.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/index.php?newsid=6581

Quackwatch, and their sister NCAHF site seem to think that the Sloan-Ketterling Center (and any others that find benefit from acupuncture) have been taken under the spell of Fu Manchu:

Quote:

The National Council Against Health Fraud has concluded:

* Acupuncture is an unproven modality of treatment.
* Its theory and practice are based on primitive and fanciful concepts of health and disease that bear no relationship to present scientific knowledge
* Research during the past 20 years has not demonstrated that acupuncture is effective against any disease.
* Perceived effects of acupuncture are probably due to a combination of expectation, suggestion, counter-irritation, conditioning, and other psychologic mechanisms.
* The use of acupuncture should be restricted to appropriate research settings,
...
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/acu.html

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by 9erfan on Mar 16^th, 2004, 8:47pm

I believe that acupuncture is probably a reliable alternative for a number of ailments.
I have NEVER read ONE post on this board from anyone who has said that their clusters have gone away after having acupunture treatments.

I've tried it NUMEROUS times....not a bit of difference. Do not waste your time & money!

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by HypnoticFreddy on Mar 16^th, 2004, 9:01pm

For me, Acunpuncture was like a nice professional message. It sure feels good at the time and you are left with a nice euphoric feeling for a few hours after.

I guess it would be interesting to see what kind of effects acupuncture would haveing during an ACUTE attack. So maybe before the appointment down a shot of vodka or ask for some nitroglycerin tablets (surefire triggers)

-Freddy

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by AlienSpaceGuy on Mar 16^th, 2004, 11:01pm

It's a damn conspiracy of the Chinese communists to overthrow the world. Same goal, but subtler methods as Al Kaida.

In a concerted action they try to weaken the western peoples. By sucking them to try some bogus hankypanky, as worthless as the general understanding of nature of the time of its origin 3000 years ago.

In addition to the 'studies' on acupuncture in Australia and in the USA, reported about on these boards, there is also a gigantic 'study' under way in Germany.

But before I tell you about it, let me recall the methods used to evaluate new medicaments or procedures in modern western medicine:
Test are made in a double blind procedure, that is neither the treating physician nor the patient know whether the real thing or a placebo is given. This is to exclude any expectations or prejudices, positive or negative, by the evaluating doctor and the patient.
Double blind studies are the corner stones for accepting or rejecting any new treatment in modern western medicine.

Now to the German studies. Yes, in plural: There are three concurrent large 'studies' on acupuncture under way, partly for different conditions, partly overlapping. Coincidence? Not if you look at the communist China connection.

Let's take a closer look at the studies for back pain, knee arthrosis, tension headaches and meegraines:
About 1000 patients are splitted into 3 groups:

Group 1 gets verum-acupuncture, e.g. points are stimulated that the acupuncturist believes are connected to the disease to be treated (Side note: How come that every needle artist has his own hot spots? Does this point to a trial and error approach?)
Group 2 gets 'minimal acupuncture', that is needles are inserted more or less at random and less deep, without choosing the 'meridian' involved (or not knowing which one to chose).
Group 3 gets no acupuncture at all.

Patients of all three groups continue to take their usual medication. After three month and 12 acupuncture sessions (where appropriate) the patients report on the success or lack of it. As you can see: a far way off from the otherwise usual double blind studies, because that would exclude.... (see above).

Some results for meegraine patients: In one study there was no significant different outcome with or without acupuncture. But in another, the verum-acupuncture brought for 44% of the patients at least a 50% improvement of meegraine pain. A strange difference? Maybe because of the 'highly scientific' methods used, who knows?

In Germany the communist agents not only weaken the people with their useless scam, there is also a massive transfer of money to the communist agents: The 1.2 million (yes, 1,200,000) probands get the needlework for free, the bill is paid by the public health insurances, financed by all assured (by law: everybody) and the treasury. Get out your pocket calculator and multiply: 1.2 million probands times $40 per session times on the average 12 sessions...... A really crafty scheme to let the people pay to get infiltrated by enemy agents. (BTW, Germany has 82M inhabitants).

Horror vision:
If acupuncture should become accepted to treat CH, add to the currents average of 6.8 years a clusterhead has to suffer needlessly until he gets proper treatment a few years for the attempts to exorcize the demon by puncturing the skin of the sufferer. :-[

Beware of scams, even if they survived 3000 years.
ASG

Title: Re: Acupuncture
Post by toader on Mar 17^th, 2004, 9:14am

wow ASG, you see the world two ways: black or white

that's more scary to me

Title: Double Standards or Objectivity ??
Post by floridian on Mar 17^th, 2004, 10:20am

Alien Space Guy,

most surgical techniques have not been validated with your tests of modern western medicine. How often is a surgical procedure put through a blind/placebo controlled study?? It's rare - in fact, in the one case I am aware that this was done, half the patients were given sham surgery (anesthetized, cut open, but nothing done), arthoscopic knee surgery was shown to be no better than placebo. But that doesn't mean that all surgery is worthless. Do you agree that we can evaluate the effectiveness of surgery for appendicitis without a double-blind methodology?? Or should be reject surgical treatment of a ruptured appendix as an unproven therapy??

The evaluation of change in acupuncture patients can be done in a blind manner to prevent concious or unconcious bias on the part of investigators. Patients can be evaluated by doctors that were not involved in the treatment, and who are unaware of which patients recieved a treatment or a sham. Changes in blood chemistry after real or sham accupuncture are quantitative, objective measures that are not influenced by the expectations of the researcher.

Quote:

Some results for meegraine patients: In one study there was no significant different outcome with or without acupuncture. But in another, the verum-acupuncture brought for 44% of the patients at least a 50% improvement of meegraine pain. A strange difference? Maybe because of the 'highly scientific' methods used, who knows?

Have you looked at how many studies for commonly accepted western medicines show that these medicines are often no better than placebo?? Does that call for an attack on moden western medicine as it is being practiced??

What about the fact that drug companies simply do not publish studies that find their products are useless, but trumpet any studies that do?? How is that objective science??

What about "off-label use" of medicines? There are few medicines which have been researched enough to be approved by the FDA for treating cluster headaches. We generally get untested medicines for migraines, high blood pressure, bi-polar depression, and atypical psychosis. Should this unvalidated and potentially dangerous practice be stopped immediately? Shouldn't we pull people off these medicines that have not passed multiple double-blind, placebo controlled studies?? Or does the fact that people report benefit have some value??

Quote:

Last Updated Fri, 13 Feb 2004 13:41:33

TORONTO - A drug company withheld crucial clinical trial results indicating the anti-depressant drug Paxil has no benefits for children, according to a confidential internal document.

The document was published Thursday in a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The document acknowledges that clinical trial results were "insufficiently robust" to back up an application to use Paxil to treat depression in people under the age of 18.

Health Canada recently issued a warning about the drug, along with seven other antidepressants like it, that it was no more effective in children than a sugar pill. Health Canada also warned that in some cases, the drugs did more harm than good.

* RELATED: Health Canada doesn't control 'off label' use: inquest

...

The internal memo said only positive findings would be reported from a clinical trial conducted by the company - GlaxoSmithKline - in the United States, which found the drug was no more effective in children than a placebo.

Companies applying for drug licensing in Canada put together a list of data to support their application. They're free to pick and choose which data to include. It's up to Health Canada to review the information and determine whether to approve the drug.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/02/13/Consumers/paxil040213

Quote:

A controlled trial of arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee.

Moseley JB, O'Malley K, Petersen NJ, Menke TJ, Brody BA, Kuykendall DH, Hollingsworth JC, Ashton CM, Wray NP.

CONCLUSIONS: In this controlled trial involving patients with osteoarthritis of the knee, the outcomes after arthroscopic lavage or arthroscopic debridement were no better than those after a placebo procedure.

I'm not saying that acupuncture is effective for clusters. I'm not saying its effective for all conditions. But there is a large body of evidence that it can be effective in many areas. The notion that acupuncture is unscientific, while all common western medicine is backed by science is simply wrong.